Anubis Gate’s new self-titled album really took me by surprise; I went in expecting a standard Euro power metal affair but ended up falling in love with a complex, classic progressive metal masterpiece. I’ve already written about how this album reminds me of Queensryche if Queensryche updated their approach a bit for the modern age and didn’t start sucking, but I should add that Anubis Gate are very much in the same class of more modern bands like Iced Earth and Into Eternity, too; fans of those bands are surely gonna dig the shit out of this record, like I do.

Listen for yourself: Metal Insider is streaming the entire record. You’ll be hooked [and surprised] from the first song.

-VN

Few albums this year are as likely to cause internet flame wars as Opeth’s Heritage. People have been freaking out for months about the fact that there’s no screaming on it; I suspect they’ll freak out even more when they hear the actual music. “Opeth bring the funk!” is a phrase I honestly never expected to type — at least, not without a huge dose of sarcasm.

And so, as an educated metalhead who likes to be able to participate in water cooler conversation, it would behoove you to head over to NPR, where Heritage is now streaming in full. Once you’ve given it a listen, you should, of course, head back here, and participate in the aforementioned internet flame war in our comments section. ‘Cause I’m honestly not sure what the metal community’s overall reaction to this record is gonna be — mostly positive, mostly negative, or split right down the middle? — and I’m itchin’ to see.

Bring in ‘da noise, bring in ‘da funk here. Heritage comes out September 20 via Roadrunner.

-AR

Axl and Anso are working on something very special surrounding the release of Anthrax’s forever-in-the-works Worship Music, which comes out tomorrow after 8 painstaking years of writing, recording, hiring new singers and firing old ones (and re-hiring old ones again, multiple times), re-recording, and, for us, waiting. But it’s finally here. I’ll leave the critical analysis for Axl and Anso, but here’s my two cents about the album in a nutshell: it rocks.

Worship Music rocks so much, in fact, that I’m attending tonight’s “secret” Anthrax show at the Best Buy theater in NYC mainly because I want to hear the band perform the new stuff live. When’s the last time you went to see Metallica, Megadeth or Slayer hoping to see them perform new shit? My guess is you haven’t because “new shit” is synonymous with “bathroom break” ’round those parts, especially if you’re under the age of 30. But Anthrax, no doubt because of their underdog status as #4 of the Big 4, still have the fire, still have the passion, still have something to prove, and the new songs prove that. This performance of “The Devil You Know” on Jimmy Fallon’s late night TV joint shows that they still got it and that they’re pumped to be where they are. The mix is absolute shit but Belladonna sounds good… most importantly, the energy is all there.

-VN

[via Metal Insider]

Music can have an incredible emotional impact on the listener, at times overwhelming. When you write about music for a living it’s impossible not to be become jaded, and those times when music completely takes you over grow ever farther between. But watching this live performance of “Flying” — Living Colour’s 9/11-inspired song and, IMO, the best 9/11-inspired song ever-written — is sending chills down my spine and had me on the brink of tears for a moment. It’s that powerful.

“Flying” is a moving song on its own, but this performance, filmed in New Jersey on the 8th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, takes it to another level. Cory Glover is one of the most emotional singers in the world; at a private performance of their new album The Chair in the Doorway in 2009, Glover broke down into tears after introducing and then launching into a song about his late mother. You can feel it in this performance of “Flying” too… Living Colour are a true New York band, and the 9/11 attacks affected all of us in a profound way. These lyrics, and the accompanying music — including Vernon Reid’s extended guitar solo — capture the emotions we all feel so perfectly.

I jumped out the window to get to the parking lot
I’m writing this little song on my way down
Never in my life have I felt a heat so hot
I had to get out

Such a lovely day to go flying
The sky’s so clear, the sun is shining
Fate has given me wings
Such a terrible funny thing

I was gathering up my nerve to ask out Carmen
She glanced out the window
Oh my God
The room It went away, now we’re holding hands
Just not the way I planned

I meant to remind you guys yesterday but I’m a dick so I forgot — Arch Enemy’s North American Khaos Tour, which we here at MetalSucks are very proudly co-presenting, is now underway! I’ve been trying to find fan-filmed footage from last night’s kickoff show in Baltimore to no avail, but I hear the concert was great… which is really no shock. Especially given that the three support bands — DevilDriver, Skeletonwitch, and Chthonic — are all as much fun as Arch Enemy! You can get dates here. If anyone is gonna be at the NYC show tonight, come find us. I’ll be the really, really not-sober guy in the back screaming for them to play “Savage Messiah” over and over again.

Now, here’s some stuff we did this week:

• We debuted new music from Black Cobra.
• We also debuted an outtake from the movie Hesher and a clip from Fantomas’ new live DVD.
• We spoke to Charlie Benante from Anthrax and Avi Kulawy from Magrudergrind.
• We checked out the latest releases from Brutal Truth, Wolves in the Throne Room,and Bloodsoaked.
• We debated the merits of new songs from Mastodon, Opeth, and Megadeth.
• We launched The Third Annual “Run MetalSucks for a Day” contest.
• Vince listed “The Top Fifteen Reasons Metallica are the Yankees of Metal,” and then The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley offered a retort.
• We fucked Bret Michaels in the motherfucking eye.
• We voted for Sergeant D.’s acoustic cover of The Acacia Strain.
• We almost had to kill a puppy.

And, oh hey, did we mention that tickets for The Metal Suckfest are on sale now? We did? Okay, swell!

Have a good weekend, y’all. See ya Monday.

-AR

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (not really at all) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

This week ‘s question was suggested to us by the reader known as “Cougar Party”:

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE RIFF OF 2011 THUS FAR?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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Axel Rudi Pell’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” is terrific*, and now it has a video of the highest possible quality to equal the sheer emotional force of the recording. What I like about this video isn’t just that the singer, Axlistoolazy Tolookuphisname, emotes with same skill as Tobias Funke — it’s that ARP also a) may be single handedly keeping the German wind machine industry in business, and b) was nice enough to hire all the tween girls from Chappaqua that went to Jew Camp with me to be in his choir.

“Hallelujah” is just one of the many soothing sounds that ultimately made me decalre ARP’s new album, The Bullshit IV, the best of the year. It comes out out September 27 on SPV.

-AR

*But only on Opposite Day!

There comes a time in the life of any moderately successful band where a decision must be made: to continue writing artistically relevant music or to throw on a cowboy hat and write about beer and puss—

I wonder which is more profitable.

Last week we explored the first of six stylistic pitfalls good bands/musicians so often fall prey to (click here to see part 1!), changes in quality of life. In this edition we will be focusing our attention on a very different, but equally devastating gaffe, and it’s a distinctly American problem at that (provided that Canada is basically America).

Click to read more…

Maynard James Keenan’s Puscifer project has debuted its video for “Man Overboard” over at Rolling Drone, and I’m feeling pretty conflicted about it.

‘Cause on the one hand, it’s not every day we see a CG animated steam punk video, and I applaud Maynard for continuing to at least make an attempt to venture into untested waters. Plus, as Metal Insider points out, there’s a Spinal Tap reference at the fifty-three second mark, and I’m all about Spinal Tap.

On the other hand, said CG animation is roughly on par with that incredibly poopy Iron Maiden video for “Wildest Dreams.”

So I guess you should, like, watch the video and make up your own mind. But only after you’ve already watched that way-cooler Ghost Brigade video, ’cause, like I said, it’s way cooler.

VIDEO REMOVED UNTIL WE FIGURE OUT HOW TO STOP ROLLING DRONE’S STUPID FUCKING AUTO PLAY.

Puscifer’s latest, Conditions of My Parole, comes out October 18 on Puscifer Entertainment.

-AR

We here at MetalSucks (and our advertising agency, the Blast Beat Network) would like to get to know a little bit more about you. Not in a creepy way, of course; all info submitted will be completely anonymous, and you will not be tracked in any way, shape or form whatsoever. We’re just hoping to learn more about our readers so we can attract advertisers that are more relevant to your interests, i.e. more video game ads and less annoying “Surveys4Income” ads. So we figured we’d put together a quick survey asking some basic questions: do you play an instrument? how do you download music? how often do you buy metal t-shirts? Etc. That kind of thing… no rocket surgery here.

Everyone who participates will be entered to win a prize pack including a one-year premium subscription to Spotify, a grab bag of metal CDs, a MetalSucks t-shirt and a MetalInjection t-shirt. The survey will only take 2-3 minutes to fill out. Again, your info will be recorded anonymously. And there are no wrong answers… so please be as honest as possible.

Take the survey here!

Just yesterday, Vince reported a rumor that The Ocean would be opening for Devin Townsend on his October headlining run; now it’s confirmed, thanks to both the release of the actual dates for said October trek, and that nifty poster you see above. The Ocean actually won’t be on the first three dates, but still — not only is this a fantastic bill, but it must make up for the sting of The Ocean’s previously-scrapped U.S. tour plans.

There’s really nothing else to say… if you know anything about anything, you will absolutely NOT miss any tour with both Heavy Devy and The Ocean. Here’s the itinerary:

Click to read more…

[Justin Foley -- MS columnist, guitarist/vocalist in The Austerity Program and... <scoff> Yankees fan -- was so inspired by yesterday's The Top Fifteen Reasons That Metallica Are the Yankees of Metal post that he decided to write a response. Here it is! -Ed.]

Vince,

It’s really sad that you just won’t let things go.  So you like the Mets.  But they’re losers.  So you hate winners.  Just keep reading those three sentences over and over until they sink in.

Metallica are not the Yankees of metal.  Consider just this: the Yankees are still playoff contenders every year and likely have many more WS rings in front of them.  Metallica … what could the future hold for them?  I’ll tell you what: one thing – Gene Simmons.  Gene Simmons is right now just waiting by his phone for them to call him so that he can take over.  He’ll talk to them about staging a ‘Nothing But Denim’ tour, partnering with novelty acts for marketing purposes and then, when it’s time for your target demographic to consider it, ease into casket promotion.  He’s ready.  Everything else at this point is just postponing the inevitable.

So let’s review your reasons and why they’re (mostly) wrong.

15.  No. The Yanks have had ups and downs, but at least several Golden Eras. In the late 90′s-early 00′s, for example, the Yankees were a legitimately incredible baseball team. But anything after “And Justice…” is basking in the glow of an earlier light.

14.  Huh?

13.  The Yankees have the biggest payroll in baseball and the best championship record of any professional sports team.  Maybe Metallica have the same?  I don’t know.  But also keep in mind that the Yankees have always been in the Bronx.  Although it seemed to require a full raping of the city/state funds to do it, they still remain on 161st Street.  Can’t say that about the Dodgers and Giants.

12.  Absolutely.  And that’s why they’re both successfully ripped off by bootleggers.

Click to read more…

One of the quirkiest and most unapologetically uncompromising films to be released this year was writer/director Spencer Susser’s Sundance hit Hesher. The anarchic dark comedy stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Hey, we were just talking about that dude!) as the title character, a sort of heavy metal Mary Poppins who helps a grieving father (The Office‘s Rainn Wilson) and son (Devon Brochu) overcome a recent family tragedy. And while that might sounda kinda saccharine,  Hesher — the movie and the character — is metal as fuck. Not only did Gordon-Levitt base his character on Cliff Burton, but his entrance music for every scene is Metallica’s “The Shortest Straw.” The band was even cool enough to lend the film their music and logo design.

If you missed Hesher in theaters this past spring, fret not — Lionsgate will release movie on DVD, Blu-ray, Digital Download and On Demand this coming Tuesday, September 13. To celebrate, MetalSucks is proudly debuting the below clip, a special feature from the DVD/Blu-ray release. It’s an outtake of one of the funniest scenes in the movie, in which Hesher, with no regard for manners or his present company, tells a graphic story about… well, you’ll see. As it turns out, the actors couldn’t get through the scene without cracking up, and it’s hard to blame ‘em!

You can pre-order Hesher, which also stars Natalie Portman and Piper Laurie, on DVD here, and Blu-ray here.

We somehow missed the debut of “Clawmaster,” the new Fursy Teyssier-directed Ghost Brigade video, when it debuted earlier this week, and, well, shame on us! ‘Cause not only is Ghost Brigade awesome, but, as my headline says, so is the clip. It all heavily stylized, black and white silhouettes — the non-performance footage is all animated, in fact — and there’s real beauty to the sparseness of the thing. I dunno if any of you have played that game Purgatory, but it’s kinda like that. Only instead of getting frustrated that I can’t advance to the next level, I get to listen to some really really great metal.

“Clawmaster” appears on Ghost Brigade’s latest album, Until Fear No Longer Defines Us, which is out now on Season of Mist.

-AR

That’s right! Tickets for The Metal Suckfest — the two day festival with a line-up so ridiculously awesome we can’t believe we actually put this thing together — are ON SALE RIGHT NOW.

You can buy tickets to Day 1 (November 4) or Day 2 (November 5) individually for thirty bucks a pop — that’s just three dollars per band!!! — or, for your best value, buy a THREE DAY PASS! for seventy-five bucks.

“Wait, there’s a THIRD day?” you ask. That’s right! On November 3, the night before the fest officially kicks off, we’re hosting The Metal Suckfest Pre-Game, which will be headlined by legendary black metallers Mayhem and will also feature Keep of Kalessin, Hate, Abigail Williams, and Woe. Individual tickets to that show cost twenty-five dollars, but with your Metal Suckfest 3 Day Pass, you get a ten dollar discount. Pretty sweet, eh?

So GO BUY TICKETS NOW. The full line-up is after the jump, in case you forgot… do not forget that four more bands are still yet to be announced!!!

Click to read more…

I’ve been following the progress of Slash’s Slasher Films — whose goal is to “produce edgy contemporary horror fare with a nod to the thrillers of the ’70s and ’80s” — since its inception last October, because, well, I think the idea of Slash as a movie producer is amusing, even if he may really only be a producer in name only, (my educated guess is that his partners at the company, Michael Williams and Rob Eric, do all the actual work, using Slash basically just as a mascot/public face of the shingle), and because if he actually ends up being successful at it, I suspect that suddenly we’ll see lots of aging rock stars starting up their own film enterprises (you just know that Lars Ulrich and Nikki Sixx are chomping at that bit). And in January, you may recall, Slasher announced that their first project would be Nothing to Fear, which the former Guns N’ Roses guitarist described as being “about a God-fearing Christian family who gets relocated to a small town in Kansas called Stull, which unbenownst to them happens to be one of the seven gateways to hell, and they’ve been lured there for an annual sacrifice [the townfolk] do for the demon that appears every year to satiate his bloodlust — otherwise he goes on a rampage.”

Now Deadline reports that Nothing to Fear has a greenlight, and will begin shooting this October in Louisiana. Furthermore, Oscar nominee Thomas Haden Church — he was nominated for the dramedy Sideways, but you should at least know for playing the villain “Sandman” in Spider-Man 3 — is apparently in negotiations to star as “a charismatic but unbalanced man of the cloth.”

Click to read more…

I’ve been ragging on Dream Theater a good bit lately, but it comes from a place of love; nowhere in the metalsphere will you find a bigger DT fanboy than me. Naturally I’m quite excited that no longer do we have to listen to short snippets of new songs; Roadrunner Records Germany is hosting a full stream of DT’s new album Mike Portnoy Left the Band.

As I sit here listening to the album I’m wondering whether this stream is also Mike Portnoy’s first chance to hear it. Sorry for dwelling on his exit from the band, but it’s a pretty big deal! Anyway, from what I can tell his departure hasn’t really affected the band’s sound much one way or the other; A Dramatic Turn of Events sounds just like Dream Theater, even the drumming. I can’t see any longtime DT fans being disappointed, and likewise, if you’ve never liked Dream Theater before this album your mind is not going to be changed. Of course, as with all Dream Theater albums, I’ll need several listens to fully digest the music and make final judgment.

Stream the album over at Roadrunner Germany. Order it here before its September 13th release date.

-VN

Jake Dreyer, the 19-year old shredder we featured on MS in June who’s already done time in Jag Panzer (for one day) and Neil Turbin’s Death Riders. I’d tell you the name of the guy he’s replacing and how many guitarists have now been in White Wizzard, but I honestly have no idea and don’t have the energy to look it up. It’d be like asking me to recall the weather in Kuala Lumpur on June 26th, 2008.

Dreyer is a super-talented dude and I really hope this works out for him… but he has to know who he’s dealing with here, right? I guess it’s a good time to join White Wizzard with a new album and tour around the corner, especially for a young guitarist who’s never toured before and has the whole world as his oyster. As long as he understands that when you play with fire, there’s a good chance you’ll get burned. By Jon Leon’s stinky farts.

-VN

Dreaming Dead’s last release, Within One, was our own Satan Rosenbloom’s pick for the best album of 2009, and Satan has excellent taste, so his endorsement should a) make you wanna get into Dreaming Dead, and b) make you wanna hear whatever they release next. And, hey, good news! Their new, still-to-be-titled album will be out later this year on Ibex Moon.

And, hey, BETTER news! They’ve released a demo from that album, for the song “Midnightmare,” which you can stream here. It’s pretty rockin’, too; the guitar interplay is nice and evil, but I’m especially digging Mike Caffell’s drums. In fact, it’s hard for me to imagine what complaint any modern death metal fan would lob against it. It certainly makes me wanna listen to more.

Headbang here, then let us know what you think in the comments section. We’ll bring you more news on Dreaming Dead’s latest offering as we get it…

-AR

What’s up guys I need your help. As you know I am not just a blogger, but also a musician like a lot of you. I just wanted to post this acoustic cover I did of “BTM/FDR” for this cool Alternative Press contest. The winner gets to open for the Deez Nuts/BMTH/Parkway Drive tour in my town! This would be a huuuuge chance for me, especially since I read on Absolute Punk that their were going to be a lot of ‘industry people’ at the show, so I would really appreciate it if you could vote for me!!

Also for all you ‘haters,’ I know this video isn’t perfect so let me just go ahead and say I know it’s not perfect and there are some things I will be fixing when I re-record this. So if you were going to ‘hate’ on me for any of these things, don’t even bother, I will do it for you haha:

Click to read more…